


I am the Calm and Collected

by StuckyandStarWars



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, SHIELD Agent Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 23:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17456417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuckyandStarWars/pseuds/StuckyandStarWars
Summary: Three months was how long Bucky Barnes had been missing.And three months was how long it took Bucky Barnes to end up in a pink motel bathtub, bleeding out.But three months apart hurts like hell, maybe more than a stab wound, and it's enough to keep him hanging on.*Title inspired by Decmberists song, might change later*





	1. Upstate New York is a bitch.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Infamous_society](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infamous_society/gifts).



Dying in a shitty bathroom in a shitty motel wasn't how Bucky Barnes, the fucking Winter Soldier, wanted to go out. He had never been one for honor. Glory in death wasn't top priority. But bleeding out in a disgustingly pink bathtub just seemed disrespectful. Maybe he should call Headquarters. Tell Fury that Hydra hadn't gotten the information they had been chasing him for. Or in his minutes left his should call Steve. Or just play one of his older voicemails- not one of the ones of Steve half crying into the phone- but one that was older than three months.

Three months. That's how long Hydra had been on his ass, and that's how long he had been missing. There had been a few times where he almost went to visit Steve. Even just to say he was alive. But he couldn't drag Steve into this, he just couldn't. He had stayed in New York, just in case he needed to get back to Brooklyn quickly.

One of the things Bucky had promised Himself that he wouldn't do on his deathbed was think about the things he didn't do in his life. He pushed away thoughts of Steve and thoughts of places he never visited. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the tile. It was almost as pink as the tub, but it was dirtier and littered with black mold. He had also promised himself he wouldn't cry, but neither of these were holding up. The more he tried not to think of Steve the more the thoughts wormed in. And he started to feel tears slide down his dirty face. The salt stung his scrapes a little but it was nothing like the throbbing of the bandaged gash in his side. He opened his eyes to the yellow light, and his cracked lips to take in another shaky and painful breath.

Bucky let his eyes drift down to the blue bath mat on the black and white floor, now both stained with his own blood. His phone was on the mat. He reached out to grab it with his metal left arm, the tension stretching his wound and pulling on the stitches he had done himself. He could barely reach it, but he did. Keeping a hold of it in his shaky and bloody right hand while trying to unlock the phone was a challenge. But listening to Steve's random voicemails that mostly just said “I love you” was fucking torture.

It wasn't long until he drifted off, ready to breathe what he thought was his final breath.  
\---

When he woke up, the room smelled worse than it had when he had fallen asleep. His body ached. His neck was cramped from the bathtub, his fingers were sore, his feet hurt from running at least five miles the night before, and his side was still ringing with pain from the wound. 

The wound that was supposed to kill him. How was he not dead? He blinked to clear his vision but only saw hazy pink and orange. He needed to stand up. He should move, he should get into the bed. Even if it wasn't much more comfortable than the tub he was currently cramped into, he would at least be able to lay out flat or watch TV. He took it slow. Starting with pulling himself onto his knees, then to sit on the edge of the tub. His hand was still clamped around his phone. 

He should call Steve. He wasn't dead, Steve should know. But not yet. 

Over the next fifteen minutes he managed to stumble over to the sink, taking his bandages and gauze and sewing equipment with him. The mirror above the sink was dirty, but he was sure that a clean one wouldn't have made his face look any better. His long hair was matted and greasy, more so than usual, and the blood from the cuts and scrapes on his face had dried overnight. His eyes were crusty and drooping. There was no doubt he looked like a homeless man. Fuck, he was a homeless man. The mirror wasn't large, but it still showed down to about where his bloody and dirty bandage started. All over his chest he had scars. Most of them were older, but some of them he had treated or stitched last night. 

He limped out of the bathroom, trying not to jostle his gash too much. He was hit with a sudden wave of dizziness, and it took him a moment to realize it wasn't blood loss, but hunger. How long had it been? He needed food. He highly doubted there was room service at this shitty motel. Or a breakfast bar. Bucky slumped down into the chair at the small table where he had dropped his bag, wincing in pain.

He slowly and carefully started to unwrap his dirty bandages to replace them with new ones. He almost passed out twice doing it, but when he was done he felt much better. He gathered what he had and tried to walk as normal as possible out to the lobby. He paid for his room, counting the cash out on the counter. After paying he only had about twenty dollars left.

“Hey, before I head out, you have any suggestions for a place I could stop and eat that isn't too far out? Maybe get a drink?”

The man behind the counter- an old guy with gray hair and a permanent, nasty looking grimace- pointed at two vending machines across the room. One was almost empty, but had those weird, orange peanut butter crackers and a couple bags of chips. The other was for drinks but it only had a brand of bottled water he'd never seen before.

“Food. Drink. If ya want a Slim Jim ya can buy ‘em at the counter. Dollar for two. Seventy five change for one.”

Bucky bought four Slim Jims and ignored the weird water. There had to be a semi respectable gas station or restaurant somewhere nearby.

\---

Almost four hours later, Bucky was still walking. No one wanted to pick up a weird guy who looked like he'd been sleeping in a ditch off the side of the street, even if he was waving a ten dollar bill. Not that there were many cars. 

He should have called Steve back at the room. His cell service had dropped to 1x, which meant he had absolutely nothing. His legs were shaky with hunger and exhaustion. His feet ached. He needed to check his injuries. Luckily he hadn't bled through his shirt and jacket yet, or he would have even more trouble finding a ride or a place that would sell him food.

It was another long while- he lost count of the exact time when his phone completely died- before he found a gas station/McDonald's combo. It looked about as shitty as the motel he had slept at, but it also looked like food. And water. 

He pushed open the door, and there were a few soft cheers from behind the counter when the bell rang.

“First customer! Thanks man, I get three bucks if someone showed up before noon.”

Bucky nodded and barely glanced up at the menu.

“Some burger off the dollar menu, large fries, water. Double the burger.”

“Need anything from the gas side? We run that too. Just let us know if you do. That will be about four dollars.”

“About?”

“Mental math. Our register stopped working.”

“Jesus.” He handed the girl four ones. “Boring work out here?”

“You have no idea. Oh, we made up a special that I forgot to bring up. You buy more than three non-dollar menu burgers and you get three gallons free on gas.”

“Thanks, but I'm on foot.”

The girl, her name tag said Sandra, raised her eyebrows. The two other employees both looked out at him.

“You're walking through here? Where you from? Your feet might just fall off.”

“I'm from Brooklyn. Trying to get as far away as I can without leaving the state.”

“By walking?”

“No one is going to pick me up when I look like this. I'm well aware I give off a murder vibe.”

“Uh, speaking of that sir,” the other girl piped up. He couldn't read her name tag from there. “You're bleeding a bit- a lot, actually.”

Bucky glanced down. His jacket was fine, but his gray shirt was slowly getting dyed red around his gash.

“Ah, shit. I guess walking for miles doesn't help that in the least. I'll fix it when I'm done.”

“Looks like it hurts. Need anything for it? We got a first aid kit.” Sandra finished putting his food on the tray, and Bucky picked it up.

“I'll be fine. I've had worse than this thing. As long as you have a working bathroom, I should be fine.”

The guy, who had been quiet until now, laughed a little. “Sorry man, that's been broken longer than the register. You can fix up back here though, there isn't any food down this hall.”

“Damn.” He smiled, feeling comfortable around these kids. “Mind if I eat up here? You're the first genuine human contact ive had in a few days.” Not counting the hydra agents on my ass. Or that weird guy at the motel.

“Sure.” Sandra grinned. “You're the only person who has come in here since Thursday. What's your name?”

“I'm James. Most people I know call me Bucky.” He unwrapped his first burger and took a bite, having to grind his teeth to keep from moaning. It was a Mickey D's burger, so it wasn't prime cut, but after not eating anything but slim jims for almost two days, he was starving.

It was quiet for a minute, and Bucky looked up from his burger. All three of them were staring at him.

“Barnes?” The boy asked. “Like that guy from TV?”

“Yeah, Barnes. What do you mean from TV? I've never-”

“You're all over the news, sir.. All over it. And that guy… what's his name?” Sandra looked at her friends. None of them knew.

“Steve.” Bucky muttered, guilt filling his chest. 

“Yeah. That guy. If you're still living man, you should call the cops as soon as you get service. Or him, even. Unless it's him you're running from.” The boy gave him a concerned look, eyeing the cuts on his face.

“No. No, not Steve. I should go. I- fuck.” If Steve's face was all over the news, next to Bucky's, then Hydra might already have him. 

He stumbled back, all three of the people behind the counter forming the start of a question on their lips, but he grabbed a to go bag off the counter, shoved his food in, and made a line towards and out the door. He could feel his hands starting to shake. He might have just killed those kids. The knives in each of his boots and the gun pressed to his back felt heavy. He finished the burger he had been holding in five bites and shoved the bag into his leather one, then took off at a sprint on his aching feet.

\---

SHIELD had thought they were all done for when Hydra got their hands on classified files. It hadn't taken the whole agency down, but they had targeted some specific members. There had been names in those files.

Bucky thought he was safe. The whole thing had almost completely blown over, at least that's what it looked like, a month after the files were hacked. But Hydra had shown up while Bucky was at his cover job, and he had to make a run for it. Luckly, he had been smart enough to keep Steve and work completely separate, so nothing about him was in those files. But he'd had to completely abandon his life. And that meant Steve. Still, he couldn't seem to run fast enough. Hydra always caught up. And last time they caught up they had almost killed him.

As he walked he patched the wound up as best he could. His mind was jumping back and forth between getting the hell out of New York and getting back into Brooklyn as soon as possible and saving Steve. Even as he mulled over the choice of leaving, just going and building a new life for himself, he knew he couldn't do it. Steve was the love of his goddamn life. 

But it had taken him three months to get all the way out here. Sure, it wasn't a straight line, but it might take him a while to get back to Brooklyn. He fixed himself up against a tree and receded into the woods a little. The river he had followed the other night was close to the road, so he splashed the dirt off his face and hair, zipped up his jacket, pulled his hair back, and tried to make himself look friendlier. 

Surprisingly, it worked. He looked cleaner, but it might have just been the fact that a nice person was driving down the road. He wasn't even trying to hitchhike, and he almost jumped out of his skin when a champagne colored van pulled up next to him.

“Hey man, you look like you need a ride. Need a ride?” the man leaning out if the driver window looked like your standard every day stoner. Long hair, but shorter than Bucky's, a shirt that was practically see through, and weird meditation music waving out from the speakers.

He almost started ‘I'm fine, thanks’ but quickly changed his mind. He was exhausted.

“That's- that sounds wonderful. Uh, thanks.”

“Yeah, dude! Hop on in. You'll have to come around to the front. The passenger door on your side is jammed, and the back is full of my gear anyway.”

Bucky walked around the back and opened the passenger door.

“Heyy, man!” He held his hand out for a high five, and Bucky awkwardly hit it. With his right hand, of course. “I needed some company, and you need a goddamn ride. How long you been out here?” 

“Few weeks.” Bucky grunted, shutting the door.

“Where you headed?” The man started up the car, a stupidly cheesy smile on his face.

“Brooklyn.”

“Nice choice! Who you running from?”

“No one.”

“Don't fuck with me, man. I know that look. Brooklyn isn't a place for people who've found themselves. So why there?”

“I'm going home.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long!

It took a lot of self reassuring for Bucky to feel comfortable enough to relax into his lumpy seat. Most of it was repeating ‘Hydra doesn't operate like this’ over and over again in his head. It was almost thirty minutes until he slowly shrunk from sitting straight up to sitting straight up but a little further back in his seat. The car was probably one of the most uncomfortable he'd ever been in, and if he hadn't gotten a rare disease from that bathtub then he might get one from this seat. At least he was moving and sitting at the same time. There was trash all over the floor. Even more was piled up in the back, with just enough room for a small sleeping bag. All the back seats had been torn up to make room. He didn't want to have a conversation with this guy but he just kept in talking. 

“Man, you look tense as hell. Chill out! I got some extra weed.” He held out the blunt that he had lit a few minutes ago. “Relax.”

“No. Thank you. I don't need any of my senses impaired right now.”

“Weed doesn't hurt the body. It frees.” Bucky had a neutral opinion of his ride, but he was starting to lean towards not liking the guy. 

“I didn't say anything about long term. I've smoked weed before, but I'm not doing it in a stranger’s car.”

“Ah, whatever.” He took a drag in. “I was just hoping you'd know how to have a little fun.”

Bucky felt his toes curl and he looked out of the window with the corner of his eye. There had been nothing for miles, and he wasn't sure how long it could be until they reached any kind of town. He knew he could easily take this guy down if he tried anything, but he'd prefer not to have to fight anyone with his fresh wound. An hour inched by in silence, and Bucky started to feel his exhaustion really settle in. When he started slouching is when he really snapped out of it. He couldn't slouch. He couldn't let his guard down. Not even for a second. Hydra could be right on top of him. Hydra could already have Steve.

He hoped the residual Marijuana in the car was making him paranoid. His fingers started twitching a small bit. He should be doing inventory, making sure he had everything. The gun in his belt was pressing into his back. If he moved his feet in his boots he could feel the knives. Out of straight paranoia, he pulled his bag onto his lap and rummaged through it for his burger, but made sure he had his sniper rifle case, his ammo, his phone and all his medical supplies. When he was satisfied that he had everything he pulled out a cold burger and inhaled it. He wasn't satisfied, but he would live. 

“That's a big bag you got there. What all's in it?”

“Clothes, food, and money. You wouldn't happen to have a place I could plug my phone into, would you?”

“In the usb. Don't change my music, this stuff helps me chill.” The man was almost too high for Bucky's comfort.

He plugged his phone into the port, giving it a minute to power on before frantically checking everything. Nothing new from Steve, and he couldn't find any articles saying that Steve had been killed. When he typed “Bucky Barnes” into Google search, however, about fifty news clips popped up, a lot of them paired with Steve's face. He felt his heart clench. 

“Mind if I ask your name, big fella?” Bucky hesitated. He didn't want to give this man his real name, not with the reaction he had gotten from the kids at McDonalds.

“Uh, Jay. You?”

“I'm Rick. I can't take you all the way to Brooklyn, man. I'm going to Albany, but that's it.”

“That's as close as I could ask.” He forgot how much he missed being in a car. “Drop me off at one of the next towns, I can hitch a ride.”

“Nah, man! It's only a two hour drive to Albany from here. It's better than the walk.”

Two hours drive to a town that's only a two hour drive from Brooklyn? How had he been walking around this godforsaken state for three months? He heard his phone vibrate as it turned on, and he immediately snatched it up to check it. There weren't any texts, but that wasn't what he was checking for. He quickly opened Google and typed in ‘Steve Rogers’, letting out a huge breath when there wasn't anything on the Semi-famous artist disappearing. There were a few older articles and videos about Bucky missing, however. Steve must have made a huge deal about it. He wished he hadn't, but he didn't really know what he had expected.

Which meant Hydra absolutely had their eyes on Steve. 

He felt unbelievably lucky that Steve didn't seem to have been hurt or taken, but it didn't line up. It couldn't. He had been missing for three months, which was enough time for Steve to freak out and make a big deal, so more than enough time for Hydra to find him. 

After a while of dwelling on this, Bucky noticed that almost every muscle in his body was tense, he was sitting straight up and his eyes were fixed on the road. He relaxed as much as he could, flexing his fingers to get blood circulating, and let his eyes drift out the window.

\--

It was almost two hours, the length of the car ride, and nothing terrible had happened. He had relaxed a bit more, talked to Jay as little as possible, and tried to keep his mind off of Steve. He got out of the car in a dingy gas station in the outskirts of Albany, courtesy of Jay not wanting to drop him off mid-city and make him walk further. He swung in to grab some snacks and water, and by the time he went back outside the van was gone. 

Brooklyn was roughly a fifty hour walk. That was over two more days even if he didn't stop and stayed to the highway for the whole walk. 

And if Hydra didn't force him on any detours. 

Almost seven hours later he had gone from being energized from his nice break and gone back to dead on his feet. He wasn't bleeding anymore, which was a nice change, but his side still hurt and his eyes were burning and his feet were sore. He should stop walking and take a break. 

He was built for fighting, surviving, and being stronger than anything that would test him, but he wasn't used to walking for three months straight. His feet felt like they were going to fall off. His heart ached. He was absolutely going to get infected in one of his many, many new wounds. He kept walking, but grabbed a bottle of water out of his bag and drank almost all of it, the relief spreading through his exhausted body. 

It was almost another hour until he couldn't walk anymore. The exhaustion was starting to weigh on his physical body. He managed to stumble into the forest and collapse against a tree before passing out.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading the first chapter! The only person who is gonna be keeping me on track with this and making me update is Kat (Ket) so bro you better force me to write.


End file.
